ELECTRONICS
Sharp considers more cuts
Japan’s embattled Sharp is considering cutting thousands of jobs in addition to its current plan of slashing 5,000 jobs to repair its disintegrating balance sheet, a report said yesterday. As the struggling electronics maker decided to cut thousands more jobs, its main banks are likely to provide bridge loans of about ￥60 billion (US$755 million) to shore up Sharp’s cash flow, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported. A separate report by the Yomiuri Shimbun said yesterday it is considering a sale of the land in western Japan where its key Sakai plant is located — with a book value of ￥38.1 billion — to institutional investors in a bid to plug a gaping hole in its balance sheet.Sharp also plans to sell its building in Tokyo with the book value of ￥42.2 billion to its business partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the Yomiuri said.
BANKING
US investigates banks
US regulators are investigating claims Deutsche Bank and other global banks funneled billions of dollars for Iran, Sudan and other sanctioned nations, the New York Times reported yesterday. The probe is still in its very early stages, law enforcement officials told the newspaper, adding that Deutsche Bank was not believed to have moved funds on behalf of Iranian clients through its US operations after 2008. The investigation of Deutsche Bank is among a series of cases against global financial firms since 2009 suggesting that financial firms often transferred money for Iranian banks and companies under a loophole in US policy that ended in 2008, the Times said.
MEDIA
US$5m salary for CEO
The New York Times Co’s incoming CEO Mark Thompson will receive annual compensation of about US$5 million, the company said in a securities filing on Friday. Thompson, 55, will be paid a US$1 million annual salary, have an annual target bonus of US$1 million and receive a signing bonus in stock and stock options worth US$3 million, the company said. Next year, Thompson’s pay package is slated to be largely the same, except the signing bonus will be replaced with a long-term incentive stock award also worth US$3 million. Thompson, the outgoing director-general of the BBC, will receive moving expenses of up to US$100,000 through 2013 for relocating from Oxford, England, to New York. He will also receive legal fees up to US$25,000 for contract negotiations. Thompson is set to begin in November.
BREWERies
Heineken raises offer
Heineken NV raised its offer for Fraser and Neave’s stake in the maker of Tiger beer to US$6.35 billion on Friday, seeking to fend off a Thai rival for control of a leading brand in the fast-growing Southeast Asian market. The Dutch brewer confirmed an earlier report on Friday when it made a revised offer for Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) of S$53 per share. It had previously bid S$50 per share, while a Thai billionaire’s group made a partial offer of S$55 per APB share. Heineken, the world’s third-biggest brewer, is seeking control of Asia Pacific Breweries to gain a larger slice of one of the last beer markets that is still growing rapidly.
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
POTENTIAL demand: Tesla’s chance of reclaiming its leadership in EVs seems uncertain, but breakthrough in full self-driving could help boost sales, an analyst said Chinese auto giant BYD Co (比亞迪) is poised to surpass Tesla Inc as the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) company in annual sales. The two groups are expected to soon publish their final figures for this year, and based on sales data so far this year, there is almost no chance the US company led by CEO Elon Musk would retain its leadership position. As of the end of last month, BYD, which also produces hybrid vehicles, had sold 2.07 million EVs. Tesla, for its part, had sold 1.22 million by the end of September. Tesla’s September figures included a one-time boost in
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